No Crystal Stair
5 journalers for this copy...
This is another of the Canada Reads 2005 selections. It was enjoyable.
I've sent this novel to another BookCrosser in a trade.
Received in a book trade with Diromane. Looking forward to reading it and then sending it on its journey.
Finally got around to reading this extremely well written, historic fiction novel of life for Blacks during the 1940's. It takes place in Montreal, but could have been written about any major city during that time period.
Marion, a widow with three daughters, believes the world should be color blind and is teaching her daughters to live the same way. Marushka is a bi-racial young woman who "passes" at her job during the day but is torn between two worlds once she is home. Edmond, like so many men of his generation, is a Pullman porter despite his education and college degree.
This is a book that would make an excellent screenplay and many reviewers have thought the same. I am taking this to tonight's meet up and hope it finds another home.
Review from: Connie Freeman, Allen County Public Library, Fort Wayne, IN
Set in a black community in Quebec during the 1940s, this is a sensitive and heartwarming tale of a courageous woman making her way in a world that does not recognize her diversity or culture. Marion Willow, widowed with three girls, works two jobs to provide for them. Upright and self-sufficient, she is determined that her children will grow up to be dignified and educated despite the difficulties of being black. Marion is surrounded by a supportive community, including Edmond Thompson, a longtime friend of her deceased husband who is trained as a chemist but works as a railroad porter because of segregation. Young Otis, Edmond's nephew, also finds himself faced with limited opportunities because of class and color. He and his co-worker from the states ease their pain by frequenting the jazz clubs that feature many Harlem artists. YAs will be engrossed in the subplots due to the well-developed characters and the predicaments that shape their destiny. Emily, adopted at age 13, is a mulatto orphan. Faced with abandonment, sickle cell anemia, and no stability, she is welcomed with openness and security by her new sisters, 12-year-old Pippa and 8-year-old Effie. Readers will find these characters convincing and will enjoy watching them mature. A fresh and original story of the black experience in Canada.
Review
"No Crystal Stair has all the ingredients for an incredibly powerful, yet wistful, film, exposing as it does the inner strength of Black women, pitted against the pressure to submerge their cultural colours for Caucasian acceptance."
Product Description
No Crystal Stair is an absorbing novel that explores an increasingly difficult contemporary reality: functioning as though White while surviving as Black. Marion Willow, a proud young widow, must work at two jobs to ensure that her three girls develop lifestyles not hindered by class and colour. The bitter-sweet experience of Marion’s elegant American expatriate neighbour, Torrie Delacourt, could help the girls survive Canada’s subtle racism, which, though not legislated, wounds and hems them in. But the women’s rivalry for the love of Edmund Thompson, a handsome railway porter, pits them against one another. With humour and sensitivity, No Crystal Stair reveals both the conflict and the human heart of the proud, tightly knit Black community of the Little Burgundy district of Quebec in the mid-forties. It recaptures the days when Montreal was a cosmopolitan hub. It was a city inhabited by jazz musicians, café society, artists, gangsters — those whose world revolved around Rockhead’s Paradise — and others who clung to the community church at the end of prohibition, the depression and the anxious years of World War II.
About the Author
Mairuth Sarsfield was born and bred in Montreal and has lived in New York , East and West Africa, Washington, D.C.; Papua, New Guinea and Japan. She is the recipient of the Chevalier de l’ordre national du Quebec, and was honoured in Cleveland, Ohio with a "Mairuth Sarsfield Day". Mairuth worked as a Foreign Service Officer, as a communications expert on global information themes for the United Nations Environment Programme in Nairobi; and served on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for many years. Retired, Mairuth now lives on Vancouver Island with her husband Dominic.
Marion, a widow with three daughters, believes the world should be color blind and is teaching her daughters to live the same way. Marushka is a bi-racial young woman who "passes" at her job during the day but is torn between two worlds once she is home. Edmond, like so many men of his generation, is a Pullman porter despite his education and college degree.
This is a book that would make an excellent screenplay and many reviewers have thought the same. I am taking this to tonight's meet up and hope it finds another home.
Review from: Connie Freeman, Allen County Public Library, Fort Wayne, IN
Set in a black community in Quebec during the 1940s, this is a sensitive and heartwarming tale of a courageous woman making her way in a world that does not recognize her diversity or culture. Marion Willow, widowed with three girls, works two jobs to provide for them. Upright and self-sufficient, she is determined that her children will grow up to be dignified and educated despite the difficulties of being black. Marion is surrounded by a supportive community, including Edmond Thompson, a longtime friend of her deceased husband who is trained as a chemist but works as a railroad porter because of segregation. Young Otis, Edmond's nephew, also finds himself faced with limited opportunities because of class and color. He and his co-worker from the states ease their pain by frequenting the jazz clubs that feature many Harlem artists. YAs will be engrossed in the subplots due to the well-developed characters and the predicaments that shape their destiny. Emily, adopted at age 13, is a mulatto orphan. Faced with abandonment, sickle cell anemia, and no stability, she is welcomed with openness and security by her new sisters, 12-year-old Pippa and 8-year-old Effie. Readers will find these characters convincing and will enjoy watching them mature. A fresh and original story of the black experience in Canada.
Review
"No Crystal Stair has all the ingredients for an incredibly powerful, yet wistful, film, exposing as it does the inner strength of Black women, pitted against the pressure to submerge their cultural colours for Caucasian acceptance."
Product Description
No Crystal Stair is an absorbing novel that explores an increasingly difficult contemporary reality: functioning as though White while surviving as Black. Marion Willow, a proud young widow, must work at two jobs to ensure that her three girls develop lifestyles not hindered by class and colour. The bitter-sweet experience of Marion’s elegant American expatriate neighbour, Torrie Delacourt, could help the girls survive Canada’s subtle racism, which, though not legislated, wounds and hems them in. But the women’s rivalry for the love of Edmund Thompson, a handsome railway porter, pits them against one another. With humour and sensitivity, No Crystal Stair reveals both the conflict and the human heart of the proud, tightly knit Black community of the Little Burgundy district of Quebec in the mid-forties. It recaptures the days when Montreal was a cosmopolitan hub. It was a city inhabited by jazz musicians, café society, artists, gangsters — those whose world revolved around Rockhead’s Paradise — and others who clung to the community church at the end of prohibition, the depression and the anxious years of World War II.
About the Author
Mairuth Sarsfield was born and bred in Montreal and has lived in New York , East and West Africa, Washington, D.C.; Papua, New Guinea and Japan. She is the recipient of the Chevalier de l’ordre national du Quebec, and was honoured in Cleveland, Ohio with a "Mairuth Sarsfield Day". Mairuth worked as a Foreign Service Officer, as a communications expert on global information themes for the United Nations Environment Programme in Nairobi; and served on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for many years. Retired, Mairuth now lives on Vancouver Island with her husband Dominic.
Journal Entry 5 by BayAreaBookie at Panera Bread - 7030 Amador Plaza Rd. in Dublin, California USA on Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Released 14 yrs ago (12/8/2009 UTC) at Panera Bread - 7030 Amador Plaza Rd. in Dublin, California USA
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
Released at tonight's monthly meeting. Enjoy the book, caligula03, and happy holidays!
Released at tonight's monthly meeting. Enjoy the book, caligula03, and happy holidays!
Picked up at tonight's meeting for the Canada Reads challenge.
Journal Entry 7 by caligula03 at Book Shop 1007 B Street in Hayward, California USA on Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Released 12 yrs ago (1/17/2012 UTC) at Book Shop 1007 B Street in Hayward, California USA
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
Culling books. Group 2
Received at tonight's local meeting. Thanks!
picked up from BC friend countedx58 at our local meetup
evocative look at the life, struggles, subtle racism, mom persistence - of Marion In 1940's Montreal. I liked the frequent snippets of poetry, hymns, childrens' rhymes
